Based on a recent cameo, François Vogel ’s cat actually might enjoy a dip in the ocean despite his feline instincts to avoid it. The Abyssinian has been stretched and distorted in a series of humous clips made by his French owner, including one that lengthens and spirals the cat’s legs like flowing jellyfish tendrils. The unsuspecting pet also is stretched across the dining room and launched into an expanding sea of fish that he slowly swims through.

Vogel, who lives and works in the Parisian suburb Meudon, used slit-scan photography and time displacement in After Effects to twist and warp his cat’s figure. Head to Instagram to see his extensive backlog of comical distortions that includes turning his daughter into a seagull. (via Laughing Squid)

 

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Image © Michael Lyrenmann. All images shared with permission

The teams at Gramazio Kohler Research and Icon.Ai recently collaborated on an architectural project that merges digital savvy with traditional craftsmanship to create a skillful new building technique. Completed in 2019, “Augmented Bricklaying” relies on digital markers to instruct bricklayers about where to spread mortar, how thick to layer it, and what the position of the next stone should be.

A custom-designed guidance system, the hybrid technique combats the limitations of both traditional and innovative digital approaches: robotic arms have restricted mobility and difficulty with pliable materials like mortar, while physical templates can be cumbersome and less accurate for masons. The new model “combines the advantages of computational design with the dexterity of humans, supporting an entirely new way of fabrication,” the Zurich-based team said in a statement.

To create the 225 square-meter structure, masons assembled 13,596 locally sourced bricks in varying rows. The differentiated mortar heights range from five to 30 millimeters and help to determine each brick’s rotation that spans -20° to +20°. “That way mortar, usually treated as secondary material in the design of fair-faced brick walls, became a defining element in the appearance of the facade,” the team said.

Because of the differed construction, the porous exterior appears as a wave or ripple. The patterned facade provides ventilation and allows sunlight to stream into the building, which produces an array of circles that shifts based on the time of day.  It will house KITRVS Winery’s processing and storage facility. The Greek vineyard overlooks the Thermaic Gulf of the Aegean Sea at the base of Mount Olympus.

Gramazio Kohler Research is the ETH Zurich’s chair of architecture and digital fabrication, and Icon.Ai is a subsidiary of the organization’s robotic systems labs. Keep up with Gramazio Kohler’s inventive projects on Instagram and Vimeo. (via designboom)

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Image © Michael Lyrenmann

Image © Michael Lyrenmann

Image © Michael Lyrenmann

Image © Michael Lyrenmann

Image © Michael Lyrenmann

Image © Michael Lyrenmann

Image © Michael Lyrenmann

Image © Michael Lyrenmann

Image © Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich

Image © Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich

The winners of this year’s Underwater Photographer of the Year contest were just announced, and the photographer Greg Lecoeur was named Underwater Photographer of the Year 2020 for his image of crabeater seals in Antarctica. More than 5,500 images were submitted by photographers from around the world. Prizes and commendations were handed out in categories including Wide Angle, Macro, Wrecks, Behavior, Portrait, Black and White, Compact, Up and Coming, Marine Conservation, and in British waters, Wide Angle, Living Together, Compact, and Macro Shots. UPY was once again kind enough to share some of this year’s honorees with us below, with captions written by the photographers.

The collapse of a bubble underwater doesn’t seem like a very important matter, but when it happens near a solid surface, like part of a ship, it can be incredibly destructive. This video, featuring numerical simulations of the bubble’s collapse, shows why. 

When near a surface, the bubble’s collapse is asymmetric, and this asymmetry creates a powerful jet that pushes through the bubble and impacts the opposite side. That impact generates a shock wave that travels out toward the wall. As the bubble hits its minimum volume, a second shock front is generated. Both shock waves travel toward the wall and reflect off it, generating high pressure all along the surface. (Image and video credit: S. Beig and E. Johnson)